2013 Playoffs
The 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs of the National Hockey League began on April 15, 2013, after the 2012-2013 regular season. The sixteen teams that qualified, eight from each conference, played best-of-7-series for conference quarterfinals, semifinals and championships, and then the conference champions played a best-of-seven series for the Stanley Cup. The Finals ended on June 12, 2013, with the Minnesota Wild defeating the Montreal Canadiens 4 games to 3, coming back from a 3-1 series deficit. Minnesota Wild's rookie goalie Jaan Ansip was rewarded the Conn Symthe Trophy for being the most valuable player in the playoffs. The Montreal Canadiens made the finals for the first time since 1993, when they won the Stanley Cup, and they had a surprising playoff run. This playoffs is the first playoff in history, when all 7 of the standing Canadian teams made the playoffs. Playoff Seeds After the 2012-2013 season, the standard 16 teams qualified for the playoffs. The Minnesota Wild won the president's trophy with 113 points. 'Eastern Conference' 1. Montreal Canadiens - Northeast Division and Eastern Conference champions, 109 points 2. Pittsburgh Penguins - Atlantic Division champions, 107 points 3. Winnipeg Jets - Southeast Division champions, 97 points 4. Ottawa Senators - 102 points 5. Philadelphia Flyers - 101 points 6. Toronto Mapleleafs - 97 points 7. Washington Capitals - 96 points 8. Buffalo Sabres - 95 points 'Western Conference' 1. Minnesota Wild - Northeast Division and Western Conference champions, President's Trophy winners, 113 points 2. San Jose Sharks - Pacific Division champions, 111 points 3. Chicago Blackhawks - Central Division champions, 109 points 4. Detroit Red Wings - 105 points 5. Los Angeles Kings - 100 points 6. Vancouver Canucks - 99 points 7. Calgary Flames - 97 points (Wins: 44) 8. Edmonton Oilers - 97 points (Wins: 42) Conference Quarter-finals 'Eastern Conference' (1) Montreal Canadiens vs. (8) Buffalo Sabres Montreal Canadiens captured division leader and conference leader for the first time since 2007-2008. Like the 2008 playoffs, they faced a division rival, in which they won a majority of the games. Montreal swepted the Buffalo Sabres in this series, winning game 1 in a huge 8-0 victory. Carey Price made 37 saves to shutout the Sabres in game 1, and Alex Galchenyuk became the first Montreal rookie to score a hat-trick in the playoffs during game 1. Alex Galchenyuk lead the Canadiens in scoring in this series with 4 goals and 3 assists for 7 points. (2) Pittsburgh Penguins vs. (7) Washington Capitals Pittsburgh and Washington continue their strong rivalry in the playoffs again. Braden Holtby had a good regular season, so he started this playoff series, winning the first game 4-2, but then falling short 3-1 in the second game. Braden Holtby had stopped many shots in the next 2 games, and won both of them letting in only 2 goals altogether. However, he suffered a groin injury in game 4, and was to sit out for the entire series. Despite bad play by both Marc-Andre Fleury, and Tomas Vokoun, Fleury was called up again in game 5, in which Pittsburgh won 7-1. Michal Neuvirth took over Holtby's job as starter, but lost the 3 last game of the series, as the Capitals were eliminated. Pittsburgh came back from a 3-1 series decifit to win the series 4-3. (3) Winnipeg Jets vs. (6) Toronto Mapleleafs This is the second time in history the Atlanta Thrashers and the new Winnipeg Jets have made the playoffs, like the last time in the 2007 playoffs, they were 3rd place in the east, and were sweeped by the team they faced. Despite a good season against the Toronto Mapleleafs in the regular season, Winnipeg Jets had trouble facing the new Roberto Luongo that was brought into the Toronto Mapleleafs. The only time they got a big lead was in game 3 when they lead 3-0, but then the leafs came back to win 4-3, and sweeped Winnipeg Jets in the final game. (4) Ottawa Senators vs. (5) Philadelphia Flyers This is the first time these two teams met in the playoffs. Ottawa struggled against Philadelphia 1-3-0 in the regular season, but they did well in the playoffs, since they learned the Flyers weakness, and Craig Anderson improved on his defense. The Ottawa Senators went all out offensive in this series, and defeated the Flyers 4-2 in the series. Craig Anderson was able to pull 2 shut outs this series. 'Western Conference' (1) Minnesota Wild vs. (8) Edmonton Oilers The last time the Minnesota Wilds made the playoffs was in 2008, when they lost to Colorado 4-2, whereas the last time the Oilers made the playoffs was during 2006, when they had a huge cinderella run. This year, the Minnesota Wild won the president's trophy, and brought in 4 valuable rookies that proofed to be the key to their long playoff success. Jaan Ansip going 30-4-4 with a 1.18 GAA, and 0.961 sv% was chosen by coach Peter Schmidt to be the starter for this series, while Niklas Backstrom was the backup. In the first game, Jason Masyuk scored the first goal 0:42 into the game against his former team, the Edmonton Oilers. The Wild won game 1 4-0, while they won game 2-1 in OT after Dany Heatley scored off a rebound from the boards. In game 3, Jason Masyuk scored 5 goals and got 3 assists to tie the record for the most points by a player in one game. He become the first rookie to get 8 points in a game, and just the second Minnesota Wild after Marian Gaborik to get 5 goals in one game. Jaan Ansip got another shutout in game 4, as the Wild's swept the Oilers. (2) San Jose Sharks vs. (7) Calgary Flames This is the second time the two teams faced each others in the playoffs, the first one being 5 years ago, which San Jose won 4-3, but barely won. This time, Calgary won 4-2. San Jose went 3-0-1 in the regular season against Calgary, and almost won president's trophy. The first game ended in 3rd overtime, with both goaltenders playing really well, and Miikka Kiprusoff made a career high of 58 saves in a 1-0 shutout win in 3rd overtime. However, despite a 2-0 lead in the second game, Kiprusoff surrendered 4 goals in the following 2 periods to lose. Kiprusoff let in 2 goals on 2 shots in game 3, and was pulled back. San Jose only managed to shoot 7 times, but still got 3 goals for a 3-0 win. Despite Kiprusoff's bad play in game 3, he was still starting for game 4, which he recorded a 3-0 win shutout, for his second shutout. Calgary than won game 5 in a high scoring game, and 1-0 again in overtime, in game 6's eventual series deciding game. Kiprusoff recorded 3 shutouts out of 6 games this series. (3) Chicago Blackhawks vs. (6) Vancouver Canucks Chicago and Vancouver face each other for the 4th time, and only missed facing each other in the playoffs in the previous season. Like 2 seasons ago, Vancouver defeated Chicago 4-3 in the series. Cory Schneider played well with a good save percentage, but a not so great goals against average, letting in at least 3 goals in every game, other than the two shutouts he proporsed, and in game 4. In game 1, Vancouver won 3-0, and had a 3-0 lead in game 2, but lost 6-4 eventually. Game 3 was also bad for Schneider, as he lost 5-2. However game 4, and 5 saw good changes, with Schneider winning the high scoring game 5. However once again, Schneider played really bad in game 6, letting in 6 goals on only 30 shots. In game 7, Schneider recorded 47 saves in a 1-0 overtime win to win the series. (4) Detroit Red Wings vs. (5) Los Angeles Kings Despite a good regular season without Niklas Lidstrom, Detroit fell 4 games to 1 against Los Angeles in the playoffs. In the first game, Jonathan Quick played amazing making 39 saves. Second game, although Jimmy Howard played much better, he still lost. The 3rd game saw a twist, when Detroit went on road, getting an early 3-0 lead. However, LA eventually came back from the deficit to win 4-3. Detroit's sole win was a 1-0 overtime win in game 4, but they eventually lost in game 5 6-3, despite a 3-0 lead once again. Conference Semi-finals 'Eastern Conference' (1) Montreal Canadiens vs. (6) Toronto Maple Leafs The Canadiens and Maple Leafs take their rivalry even further in this series, and this is also the first time since 2000 where the Leafs made it past the first round.